New Topsail football coach stresses commitment

Friday

Jun 28, 2013 at 7:22 PM

Players and parents met newly hired coach Wayne Inman at the school Friday.

By Hannah DelaCourtHannah.DelaCourt@StarNewsOnline.com

In the media center at Topsail High School, players and parents gathered Friday morning to meet newly hired football coach Wayne Inman.The Pender County school board approved his hiring the night before, so Inman drove from Fayetteville at 6 a.m. Friday to meet his new team, which would become his "second family," he said."Our job as coaches is to love you," Inman said. "Your job as players is to love each other. We'll be a family. You can't go to war, you can't hit the game field, with a bunch of people who don't love each other. You have to be able to lay it on the line for the guy playing beside you."And his first step toward creating that "family" was to shake hands and speak with every player individually. But with dead periods and a mandatory coaches' clinic at the end of July, Inman said he is also aware that he and the team have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. So all he asked for now from his players was a commitment to football."A sense of loyalty, a sense of family, togetherness, that's big to me," he said. "I'm committed here. After today, I'm a Pirate. This is my home. All I ask is that you be committed as well."But it's not Inman's first time calling himself a Pirate.In college, he played offensive lineman for East Carolina. In his junior year at ECU, he earned third-team All-America honors, and, in 2000, he was inducted into the ECU Hall of Fame.Inman comes to Topsail after nine years as head coach at Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville. During his time there, he coached Dwayne Allen, who later played at Clemson and received the John Mackey Award presented to college football's most outstanding tight end. Allen was then drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in the 2012 NFL draft. And Inman told the Topsail players they would have the opportunity to meet Allen this season."He's going to make the trip to visit you guys," he said. "He's a great young man, a great ambassador for doing things right."While it will take time to get to know his players, Inman said he hopes to keep to his usual style of play."I'm a run guy," he said. "I like to run it right down your throat. I think if you control the game that way, if you don't have a very good defense, and you take the ball and just run and control the clock, it's ideal. But is it a reality? I don't know. If we've got the ability to do that, that's what we'll try to do."And with Topsail moving up from 2A to the 3A division this year, Inman said he does not want to look at the football program's past but only at its future."What is success?" Inman asked. "Success ain't all about wins and losses. Success is about when you put your head on that pillow at night that you gave it everything you had that day. Again, commitment is big for me. I'm not here to hamper on the past. Everything we are looking to is moving forward."